On Ash Wednesday, as we in the church pondered both love and death, 17 children were killed — and many more wounded — in yet another school shooting. This time, the lives were lost in Parkland, Florida.

It is natural to respond to such news by either fighting or fleeing. As a parent of three teenagers, I wanted nothing more than to hide the news from my children and go about our Valentine’s Day/Ash Wednesday events. Others jumped into argument mode, immediately debating the issues that arise when there is a mass shooting. There is a reason we hold a strong fight or flight response: it helps us to survive even the thought of such incomprehensible atrocities.

There is another response we can work to muster, though. We can take action. On Ash Wednesday, we considered our own sin and mortality. “I think we need to ask ourselves today,” I started with my kids on our way home from both a Valentine’s Day activity and receiving ashes, “If, when we die, we want to be remembered for our sinfulness or for what we did to ease the suffering in the world caused by sinfulness. Will we be remembered for how we loved or for how we hurt?”

What actions can we — as a community of faith — do to love more than we hurt?

We can work to dismantle the hatred and bigotry that often lead to such violent acts. We can commit to nurturing those who feel overwhelmed by loneliness and isolation. We can work to effect the legislative changes necessary to reduce gun violence. We can create systems that assist those whose needs outweigh their resources. We can take steps to build strong, welcoming communities that embrace all people.

Responding to the mass shooting in Las Vegas in 2017, the Episcopal organization Bishops United Against Gun Violence wrote, “We must look into our own hearts and examine the ways in which we are culpable or complicit in the gun violence that surrounds us every day.”

We at St. Andrew’s express our prayers for and solidarity with all those affected by the school shooting in Parkland, Florida. We vow to take action to eliminate our own complicity in violence and to help heal a nation lost to grief.​

You can read the entire statement from Bishops United Against Gun Violence here and their more recent statement regarding school shootings here.

Strangely enough, Ash Wednesday falls on Valentine’s Day this year (maybe even wilder is that Easter will be on April Fool’s Day!). Not so strangely, on both Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday, a proclamation of our dependence on the beloved is made.

Although most of us wouldn’t identify our emotions as “dependence” on Valentine’s Day, and the “beloved” is focused on our most treasured humans instead of God, we are claiming we’d rather not be without that person. Conversely, we probably don’t think of our confessions on Ash Wednesday as a proclamation of love. And, yet, a confession and an oath of love are very much related.

The point I’m trying to make is simplified in the over-used phrase embedded in many Country Western lyrics: “Your love makes me want to be a better man.” So on Valentine’s Day we say to our beloved, “I like who I am when I’m with you.” And on Ash Wednesday, we say to God, “Because of your love, I want to be a better person.” The inextricable link between the two ideas is highlighted in scripture: “We love because God first loved us (1 John 4:19).”

Lent is referred to as “the season of penitence,” but if we focus only on the part of confession that lists our “manifold sins and wickedness,” as described in Holy Eucharist Rite I, we don’t overlook the opportunity for repentance. God’s intention is for metanoia, which is the in Greek word for repentance.

While penance is a very necessary acknowledgement of the ways we have fallen short of our plan to live a holy life, repentance is about a transformative change of heart. At the most basic level, metanoia is about turning back to God, so that we are once again open to, and aware of, the depth and breadth of God’s love — despite our brokenness; despite our pain; despite our close-mindedness.

May you experience this Lenten season as practice of self- awareness—instead of self-flagellation—and may your discoveries open you to more hope, more love, and more joy in the knowledge that God is at work in your words, in your actions, AND in your loving. Lenten blessings to you!